Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Monday that the central bank's bond buying is providing crucial support for the U.S. economy, suggesting it will continue even though some Fed officials recently said they favor winding down the program.

The economic calendar in the U.S. Tuesday includes the producer price index from the Labor Department, retail sales from the Department of Commerce and the Empire State manufacturing survey, all at 8:30 a.m. EST.

U.S. stocks on Monday finished mixed as Apple(AAPL) shares declined and bank stocks fell ahead of earnings reports this week.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 19 points, or 0.1%, to close at 13,507. It's the fourth-straight session that the index has finished to the upside.

The S&P 500 shed 1 point to 1,471. The Nasdaq fell 8 points, or 0.3%, to 3,118.

Dell(DELL) , the No. 3 PC maker but once the world's largest, is in buyout talks with private-equity firms, according to Bloomberg, which cited two people with knowledge of the matter.

Facebook(FB) is holding a major press event at its headquarters Tuesday and there is plenty of speculation about what the social networker will announce.

TheStreet's Chris Ciaccia suggested that a search engine is one of the more likely choices for a product announcement, as Facebook looks to take market share away from Google(GOOG) , the search leader.

JPMorgan Chase(JPM) was ordered to take steps to correct poor risk management in connection with the multi-billion dollar trading loss it suffered last year.